The Dodgers on Tuesday morning announced the acquisition of right-handed pitcher Dylan Baker from the Brewers. In return, Los Angeles will send back cash and/or a player to be named later.
Chris Cotillo of SB Nation’s MLB Daily Dish was among the first to announce the news before the club made the deal official.
The 25-year-old Baker has posted a 12-11 record with a 3.58 ERA in 65 career minor league games—48 starts—over five seasons with the Cleveland Indians organization. In 241-2/3 career innings, he has held hitters to a .236 batting average while striking out 213 batters against just 98 walks.
In 2017, Baker made 13 relief appearances with Double-A Akron, going 0-1 with a 2.84 ERA in 12-2/3 innings, striking out 10 batters against just one walk. He also appeared in four games with the Rookie-level AZL Indians going 1-0 and allowed one earned run over four innings. Baker was claimed off waivers on November 27, 2017 by Milwaukee.
Baker missed much of the 2014 season after suffering a broken fibula when struck by a line drive in spring training. In 2015, he underwent Tommy John surgery and would not pitch again for more than two years. He endured complications from the initial surgery which required two additional procedures, forcing him to sit out the entire 2016 season.
The Roseburg, Oregon native was originally selected by the Indians in the fifth round of the 2012 MLB draft out of Western Nevada College.
Baker features a fastball, a slider and a change in his repertoire, and was clocked as high as 99 MPH last season at Akron. According to Baseball Prospectus, “he has more than enough talent to be a legitimate late-inning, major-league reliever.”
With the move, the Dodgers now have 40 players on the club’s 40-man roster.
(Dai Sugiura provided some information furnished in this report)
Think Blue Planning Committee 
I think (and hope) that Andrew is looking at Baker as a reliever rather than a starter. We’ve picked up a couple of pretty interesting injury-prone pitchers this off-season to replace McCarthy and Kazmir (both very injury prone). The good news is that they aren’t going to cost us almost $100 million.
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I considered making note of that in the story, but it’s really hard to predict based on Friedman’s propensity to use genuine relievers as starters. Any way you look at it, though, I think Baker is a long way from the majors, and will most likely be on some type of innings limit based on his extensive injury history.
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